Question Everything, Part 2: Questions from the Arena

My new year’s blog suggested questioning as a new year’s resolution. I went to a Red Wings game last night and have some questions?

Why did Detroit build a new $800,000,000 plus Little Caesars Arena using $40,000,000 of tax payer money when Detroit has been bankrupt, and many Detroiters are homeless and in poverty? If people care as much as they say about the homeless situation in our nation, why aren’t people opening their homes to the homeless?

If energy consumption is as bad as we believe it is (regardless of the details of the energy use) why do arenas as such spend gobs and gobs of energy every single night, to entertain people? And why do people pay such expensive prices to support these entertainments? Why will we, soon, indulge in the energy usage of the Super Bowl when the game itself, the main event, could be played in a much more energy efficient manner without all the hyper entertainment? If people care about energy problems why don’t they see the obvious huge outputs of energy from these kinds of big events, the mammoth holiday events, and the gargantuan uses of the big corporations, and why don’t they protest, boycott, or try to change this? Why are individuals targeted to change when they are the smallest users?

Why does the crowd love the jumbotron so much? Especially when it shows the fans acting wild and crazy? Why do the individuals crave the camera’s lens to land on them? And why do the individuals act wild and crazy when it does? What would the Romans think of our favorite pastimes? Would they seem as incredulous as we do when we peek back into the colosseum’s events of yore?

Is there a kind of mind control element to the Tron begging people to GET LOUD!!! ? And do the people get loud because they are being manipulated? Or are they just doing as they are asked/told? Is this rush the same hormonal rush people get when liked on Facebook and other social media?

Why are people so deeply concerned with and affected by their chosen sports team? Why do people come to fisticuffs over their team alliances? Why do people get drunk at the game they love so much?

What are the ramifications of all this and so much more that I’m not touching on here, for our children? Why do parents want their kids to have this kind of experience so often?